


The Greatest Game

by Kaerra



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, DnD night!, Established Relationship, F/M, Rating is for swearing and Sylvain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:02:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26957770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaerra/pseuds/Kaerra
Summary: Hubert indulges Dorothea when he finally agrees to attend her weekly DnD game, but he is resolved not to participate in anything dice related. Can he hold out against the combined powers of a happy girlfriend, Bard!Sylvain, and a raging horde of orcs? Or will he succumb to the joys of DnD after all?A birthday fic for the amazing MadameHyde!
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Dorothea Arnault/Hubert von Vestra, Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 15
Kudos: 34





	The Greatest Game

**Author's Note:**

> This is purely an indulgent fic to make people laugh and enjoy the antics of three couples who clearly show their love for their partners in unique ways. Happy Birthday (a bit belated) to the wonderfully talented MadameHyde, who is an even more amazing person than writer! Thank you to everyone who helped me get the DnD and Among Us details correct (I know, I know, Hubert is me, I don't play either). Thanks for taking the time to read this snarky and fluffy offering! ^_^ I hope I delivered a good laugh, Hyde!

“Come on, Hubert, we’re going to be late!”

Dorothea tugged on his hand, and dragged him the last few steps into the central dining hall of Garreg Mach University’s main campus. It was a Saturday evening, and the space remained open till midnight, serving mostly snacks and desserts to anyone crazy enough to study on a typical party night—or spend it playing Dungeons and Dragons with their friends. Hubert had never intended to do either one.

Dorothea had attended these evenings for weeks, but previous attempts to get Hubert to join her had always failed. He wasn’t fully certain what had changed his mind this time, maybe it was the disappointment that dulled the vibrant green of her eyes. They had been dating only two months, but had known each other for a full year before that. Yet he found himself unable to resist spending more hours of the day at her side.

“Whom are we meeting again for this game?” Hubert asked, changing his stride to match hers.

“Felix and Annette, and Ingrid and Sylvain,” Dorothea answered, looking at him oddly. “Weren’t you listening when I explained earlier?”

Hubert rushed to place the names with faces, and drew a blank. “I don’t think I’ve met them more than twice, Thea.”

“Felix and Annette are the couple who act like total opposites, but are completely head over heels for each other. Make sure to call them Netteflix, it annoys Felix every time, always worth a laugh.” Dorothea grinned. “Ingrid and Sylvain are the childhood friends turned couple I told you about, because they remind me of a trope from an opera we recently studied in class. Risking years of friendship for a chance at love!”

“How nice for them,” Hubert said, falling back on his customary sarcasm. “I’m sure they appreciate being labeled in such an endearing manner.”

He wasn’t sure what exactly Dorothea wanted him to comment on, but something inexplicably amused her whenever he reacted like that. She flashed him a grin that stole his breath as effectively as a punch to the gut. He was still befuddled by whatever twist of fate made this stunning, talented future opera star pursue him romantically, when she’d had many auditioning for the part of her boyfriend. But he wasn’t relinquishing her.

Entering into the large room, Hubert was relieved to see it was mostly empty, and those few students present who weren’t part of their group were spread out in opposite areas. Dorothea spied her friends waving from the back, and steered him to a round table already covered with materials—sheets of paper with character dossiers, some kind of map in the center, and an enviable collection of dice. Hubert had to admit that the teal and black set placed in front of the scowling dark-haired man with an oddly short ponytail was especially nice. (The scowl, not so much.)

Dorothea greeted everyone and introduced Hubert to everyone, giving him the opportunity to connect names and faces.

“You’re finally here,” the grumpy one—Felix—said. “Ingrid was about to be down a boyfriend if he said one more thing about the football game. I. Don’t. Watch. Football.”

“We know, all you do is stare for hours at video games,” the tall redheaded man said, reclining in his chair. “Or Annette.”

The diminutive woman with orange hair reached out and laid a hand over her boyfriend’s arm when he bristled. Flashing a bright smile at Hubert, she leveled her gaze on Sylvain, a shrewd look in her blue eyes.

“Dangerous move to put the girlfriend second in the list, don’t you think, Sylvain?”

Hubert smirked when the redhead yelped upon getting jabbed in the arm by the short blond-haired woman on his right. Perhaps this evening might not be a total waste until he got Dorothea to himself again—people watching had its appeal. Not that he had any intention of playing the game with them. He’d brought suitable distractions for whenever he inevitably lost interest.

He and Dorothea took the last two seats at the table, thankfully next to each other. She pulled out her own stack of character sheets, and he got out his phone, placing it on the table.

The others quickly launched into a discussion about the current campaign, and asked him at least three times if he was sure he didn’t want to create a character and join—absolutely not—before Ingrid pulled out a book from the stack of hardcovers in front of her.

“Okay, let me consult our notes and see where we’d ended after the party joined up in the haunted catacombs,” she said.

“There are notes?” Hubert asked, vaguely interested despite his better judgment.

“There are when Ingrid is the DM,” said Sylvain, shooting his girlfriend a shit-eating grin.

“It’s the responsible thing to do,” Ingrid retorted. “Better than the one time we let you be DM and you made us all go into some ridiculous castle full of succubi trying to seduce everyone.”

“Who wouldn’t want to play that campaign, am I right?” Sylvain looked at Hubert for backup, but Hubert kept his face blank, despite his innate love of all things horror. Somehow he had the impression that horror was not what the other man had had in mind.

Felix’s grunt of disapproval from across the table seemed proof enough. “That was so bad, we had to make Ingrid start her campaign early.”

“Seriously, Sylvain, I still needed another week to finish my research when you nearly caused a mutiny,” Ingrid said. “I’d forgotten my Bestiary, so I didn’t have stats for half the monsters I was going to open the campaign with!”

Sylvain affectionately ruffled her hair. “That’s why they call you ‘By The Book Ingrid’ in DnD circles.”

“There is _nothing_ wrong with playing by the rules!” she retorted. “And my ‘hours of consulting the tome’ does impact the outcome far more often than you think!”

“Hey, it’s not my fault that you’ve earned the reputation as a stickler for every word written in those books,” Sylvain teased her.

Ingrid leaned forward, her green eyes flashing. “You mean pretending it’s other people saying what _you_ actually think, my dearest love?”

The smile pulling at the edges of her lips suggested the argument was more for show than anything else. Hubert didn’t think he’d ever understand the antics of couples who flirted through debate. How was arguing with each other a turn on?

Sylvain lowered his face within inches of Ingrid’s, suggesting that yes, this was actually deliberate—goddess help the rest of them for having to witness it.

“Would I ever accuse a lovely woman like you of such behavior—”

“Yes!” chorused everyone at the table, except Hubert.

“—when she happens to be the world’s best girlfriend?” Sylvain finished, giving her puppy eyes.

“That’s not getting you out of the doghouse,” Ingrid said, but her smile indicated otherwise.

“I’ve got the world’s best girlfriend,” Felix muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear.

“What was that, Felix?” Ingrid asked. “Would you like to share with the class?”

Felix looked startled at being overheard, but the glow on Annette’s face quickly mollified him.

“Aww, Felix, you’re so sweet!” she gushed, and grabbed him by the collar of his hoodie for an enthusiastic kiss.

Sylvain took the opportunity to kiss Ingrid in turn, probably from a misplaced sense of competition. Hubert felt ill, and fervently wished he’d stayed home and binge-watched Forensics Files. He’d probably end up on a future episode if he had to endure much more lovey dovey behavior.

Dorothea leaned into him and looked up with a flirtatious smile. “What, no kiss for me, too?”

“Not in front of these fools,” Hubert said.

Dorothea rolled her eyes. “You and your hatred of PDA, Hubie, I swear…”

Hubert leaned down to murmur in her ear, “We wouldn’t want to make them feel too inadequate now, would we?”

Dorothea’s eyes widened, then she let out a merry peal of laughter. “Well played. You got away with that, just this once.”

He gazed into her eyes and smiled, startled by the temptation to kiss her without abandon in front of people he barely knew. It was none of their affair what he felt for his girlfriend, but their open displays of affection apparently carried viral qualities he had to guard against. Chiding himself, he forced his gaze away from his girlfriend, and wished he hadn’t done so—Ingrid and Sylvain were grinning at each other like fools, and Felix and Annette were so wrapped up in each other’s embrace, he could barely tell where one face ended and the other began. Disgusting.

Returning his attention to his phone, Hubert opened the app for Among Us, and loudly cleared his throat. “If anyone intends to start playing, now is probably the opportune time.”

“If only someone had brought the rum!” Sylvain said, badly imitating Captain Jack Sparrow. At least it had the effect of separating Felix and Annette.

“Seriously, this is not movie reference night,” Felix grumbled, straightening his hoodie. “If I’m playing DnD, I’m here to kick your ass and back, every time.”

Ingrid riffled through a stack of papers. “Sorry to disappoint you, Felix, but you’re all supposed to be on the same team.”

“I’m a rogue, I work alone, except when it suits my purposes,” Felix declared.

Annette giggled, and he immediately refocused on her. Hubert inwardly shook his head—who knew the power of a five foot tall woman was so supreme?

Thankfully his game finished loading, and Hubert lost the gist of the conversation over the next ten minutes while he was engrossed in it. Once his character had died near the end, he was too annoyed to play a second round, and closed the app.

Ingrid was reciting from her notes. “Ahead of you on the hill, you see a silhouette. It looks like it might be a horde of orcs. Roll a perception check.”

Sylvain reached for a set of pink sparkly dice that looked like they’d be more at home in Barbie’s Dream House than in his possession, and cupped one in his hands.

“Bard Sylvain will take one for the team. I roll to seduce the orcs!”

A glittery pink 1 stared up at him.

“Fuck a duck,” he said. Dorothea chuckled at Hubert’s right.

“Roll a second D-20,” Ingrid said, and Hubert wondered why she couldn’t just say “die” like a normal human being.

Sylvain’s next roll was better, from what Hubert ascertained when no one visibly reacted. Not that he had any investment in the proceedings beyond personal amusement. Ingrid looked at the result and consulted the table.

“Well... I'm not sure how this happened, given that is an entirely male orcish raiding party,” she said slowly. “But the entire race of kobolds is now at war with the halflings, because you had to try and seduce an orc!”

Felix groaned. “You’re such a fucking idiot, Sylvain.”

“Oh, and the orcs happen to be charging you,” Ingrid continued, barely hiding her amusement.

“Oh no!” Annette cried. “I don’t know half of my spell list, I’m not used to playing a druid.”

Ingrid handed her a book open to the proper page, and Annette dived upon it in gratitude.

While his girlfriend demonstrated the power of speed reading, Felix rubbed his hands together in glee. “Yes, my turn to kick some ass.”

From here, Hubert assumed the game would get dull again, and resumed scrolling his phone for suitable distractions. The conversation around him was anything but.

“Felix, you’re not going to beat fifty raging orcs!” Annette protested, handing the book back to Ingrid. “We’re only the second day into these characters, it’s not your overpowered Paladin from last game.”

Dorothea leaned her elbows on the table. “Annette is right, we’re all at crappy levels right now. If you try to fight a raging horde, you’ll become the F in the coffin meme. We have to run.”

“I’ve got an Elven rapier, it’s +3 against orcs,” Felix persisted. “I can take a few of them down.”

Annette shot him a look that was equal parts exasperation and amusement. “Felix, doesn’t it say in the book that it’s +3 to _hit_ them, not damage them?”

“What? Where does it say that?” Felix snatched the book from Ingrid’s stack and immediately became engrossed.

Sylvain straightened from his languid posture and bellowed, “Felix be like, ‘LEROY JENKINS’!”

Hubert nearly dropped his phone. “What was that atrocity you just spewed?!”

Everyone looked at him with wide eyes, then slowly shook their heads.

“Oh Hubie, you don’t know the Leroy Jenkins meme?” Dorothea asked, barely disguising her pity. “I’ll show it to you later.”

“Good goddess,” Hubert muttered. “The things I do for you, my love.”

He answered a few texts while the disagreeing band of adventurers retreated to an old abandoned wizard’s tower, with the portcullis at the entrance fortunately raised.

“Someone want to drop the portcullis to keep them out?” Sylvain asked, idly twirling a lock of hair around his finger.

“I’ll do it,” Annette said.

Ingrid’s voice was taciturn as she recited from her notes. “You tried, but the gate mechanism is jammed. You can’t get the gates to close.”

“We have to keep the orcs from getting in here while someone figures out how to unjam it,” Felix said. “Guess it’s a good thing I have that Elven rapier after all.”

“Unfortunately, I’m completely out of spell slots right now,” Dorothea said. “I could spot you a Cantrip.”

Felix scowled. “Fuck.”

Annette giggled nervously. “We just have to make the orcs not want to come in here, then!”

“Great idea, Annette!” Sylvain said with false cheer. “What’s the plan?”

Annette grimaced, and Felix glared daggers at Sylvain.

Dorothea wisely redirected everyone’s attention. “Does anyone have any magic or area of effect stuff left? I wasn’t joking about the Cantrip.”

“Well… I could Wild Shape, but I’m not sure how that would help,” Annette said. “It’s not like I could become anything big and scary! I’m only level 2.”

Annoyed by all of the prevarication around him, Hubert set down his phone. “For goddess’s sake, become a skunk and stink up the place! I’m sure even orcs would find that vomit inducing.”

Silence met his pronouncement.

“What?” he asked, taken aback.

Sylvain reached across the table and shook his hand. “You are a veritable genius, my friend.”

Annette blanched when she realized he was serious. “Wait, eww… That sounds disgusting.”

“DO IT!” was the unanimous opinion around the table.

“Okay, okay!” she said, reaching for her blue galaxy dice, with bright orange numbers. “Um, do I roll?”

“No, you don’t need to roll for success on Wild Shape, it’s a class ability,” Ingrid answered. “Nor do you have to roll for whether you hit. You just spray in the entryway.”

“Ugh, I can’t believe I have to say this,” Annette groaned. “Fine. I use Wild Shape and become a skunk and spray the entire area near the outside entrance.”

She made a face at Felix, who smirked in response. Their expressions shifted into something softer when he reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“The orcs approach and sniff the air before making a lot of horrible gagging noises,” Ingrid said, to various chuckles around the table. “And then… Shit. Now I have to go roll _fifty_ different orcs poison saving throws. This will take forever!”

Sylvain’s loud snort broke the momentary silence.

“Great contribution there, Hubert, thanks!” Ingrid said, sounding anything but grateful.

Hubert met her glare with a little bow, while Sylvain’s shoulders shook from repressed mirth. Dorothea stepped on Hubert’s toe in warning, but it was worth her momentary annoyance. The other men at the table met his eye with approval on their faces, amused beyond measure that By The Book Ingrid had just gotten screwed over by her own rules.

“You are a cruel man, Hubert,” Felix said. “I like it.”

Hubert shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly. “I thought everyone here was expert at this game. If all that stands between you and certain death is employing skunks as chemical warfare, why would you do anything else?”

“Well, when you put it like that…” Annette sighed. “It’s just not the sexy kind of druid ability I wanted.”

Felix leaned over and whispered something in her ear and she turned bright red.

“Felix!”

He grinned at her, and she wrinkled her nose at him in mock offense. Hubert rolled his eyes, wondering how much more he could take of other people’s ridiculous mating rituals. And to think there were two more hours left in the session. It was time to pull out the Last Resort.

Reaching into his backpack, he extracted his orgo chemistry textbook and resigned himself to actually doing work on a Saturday evening.

Sylvain leaned across the table and peered at Hubert’s book. “Oh, that’s harsh, man. You’d rather do homework than make fun of the sappy Netteflix show currently playing?”

“Hey!” Annette protested.

Felix gave his friend a withering glare. “I will hurt you later.”

Dorothea chuckled and tossed her hair over her shoulders. “Oh come on, you’re so obviously in love it’s like a romcom. We’re obligated.”

“Please don’t even mention that word in my hearing again,” Hubert said with a shudder as a collection of memories he’d forcibly repressed entered his mind. “My cousin inflicted enough of those horrors you call ‘teen movies’ on me in childhood to send me to therapy for life.”

“Or become a horror aficionado,” Dorothea grinned at him, making his pulse rate kick up.

Sylvain leaned back and put his arms behind his head. “Now that sounds like a tale I want to hear. Tell me about your cousin’s torture methods. Was it High School Musical? Worse?”

Hubert didn’t dignify him with a response, figuring that loudly opening his textbook cover against the tabletop perfectly conveyed his feelings.

“My Hubie might be all bark, but don’t let that fool you,” Dorothea said, wrapping her arm through his and squeezing affectionately. “His snark was one of the first things I found attractive when he did all he could to convince me he wasn’t boyfriend material.”

Hubert groaned, not wanting the conversation to delve into his personal life. Fortunately, he was saved from a most unlikely source.

“He did that to you, too?” Annette asked, eyes wide. “I thought it was just Felix who gave off the ‘I’d rather be fencing than date you’ vibe.”

“Annie, that’s not—” Felix began.

“Oh no, it’s true!” Sylvain interjected, his tone dripping with glee. “He’d come back from Art History lectures in a mood every time, from hours of watching Annette take notes instead of paying attention to the professor. Which of course gave him a convenient excuse later to ask her for them.”

“Shut up, Sylvain!”

Annette rounded on Felix. “ _That’s_ why you asked me for my notes?”

He shrugged, his cheeks an unflattering shade of pink. “You’re better at that than I am.”

“But that was weeks before you walked in on me singing karaoke!”

Dorothea laughed. “And here I was thinking it was only me. Hubert had the audacity to tell me I should devote myself to my opera studies instead of pursuing him.”

“Weren’t you all playing DnD?” Hubert asked loudly. “Surely all of those orcs must have fled by now.”

“Just a second, I have one dice left to roll!” Ingrid commanded, her hand raised in warning. “And since we were on the subject, I will add that Sylvain’s method of convincing me to date him might as well have come from High School Musical.”

Sylvain’s cheeks turned pink, and everyone else laughed. Smirking, he shook his head, and silently applauded his girlfriend.

“Well placed dagger there, Ingrid.”

“You bring out the best in me,” Ingrid grinned, and picked up her moss green colored die for the last roll.

“Seriously, half of the point of DnD is just to hang out and have fun with friends,” Sylvain said, putting his arms behind his head and stretching. “You might try it sometime, Hubert. You’re clearly good at it.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Hubert demurred.

Annette echoed her agreement, Felix shrugged, but the half smile on his face belied his feelings. Dorothea looked up and gave Hubert a luminous smile. Well... Perhaps there were worse things he could be doing. Besides, a smile like that had far more effect upon him than he ever wanted his girlfriend aware of, or she’d use it like a blunt instrument at every opportunity.

“You know, Hubert, they do have a game for vampires, right?” Ingrid said, looking up from the chart where she’d recorded all fifty dice rolls. “I thought Dorothea said you study horror as a genre?”

“Vampires, you say?” Hubert tilted his head in consideration. “That’s an entirely different beast. Tell me more.”

The orgo textbook was forgotten for the rest of the night. And every subsequent weekend afterwards. (In fact, a month into playing, Hubert bought clear resin dice with skulls inside, because horror is life, and DnD was not too far behind.)

**Author's Note:**

> As a matter of fact, my husband did actually Wild Shape into a skunk, and messed up all of his DM's plans. Maybe I'll actually let him talk me into a game one of these days, we'll see. (So far, I am made of sterner stuff than Hubert.) ^_^ 
> 
> Feel free to visit me at [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/Kaerra3)


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